UK: The Left's Little Antisemitism Problem

Within a week, Britain's Labour party leadership was forced to suspend one of its newest MPs and one of its oldest grandees -- and both for the same reason.

Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn and Ken Livingstone both say that they condemn anti-Semitism. They always tend to add that they also condemn "Islamophobia and all other forms of racism," a disclaimer that always seems a deliberate attempt to hide a hatred of Jews under the skirts of any and all criticism of Islam. What is most fascinating is that all the while they are saying this, they stoke the very thing they claim to condemn.

They pretend that the Jewish state does such things for no reason. There is no mention of the thousands of rockets that Hamas and other Islamist groups rain down on Israel from the Gaza Strip. The comment turns a highly-targeted set of retaliatory strikes by Israel against Hamas in the Gaza Strip into a "brutal" attack "on the Palestinians" as a whole. While mentioning those death-tolls, Livingstone has no interest in explaining that the State of Israel builds bunkers for its citizens to shelter in, while Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields and useful dead bodies for the television cameras, to help Hamas appear as an aggrieved "victim."

It is the narrative of the "left" on Israel that is causing the resurgence of anti-Semitism. It is not coming from nowhere. It is coming from them. If the left wants to deal with it, they first have to deal with themselves.

Every time anyone thinks Britain's Labour party has reached a new low of anti-Semitism, entirely new depths seems to open. In September, I wrote here about how the election of Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership of the Labour party constituted a "mainstreaming" of racism in the UK. Although Mr. Corbyn claims he does not have any tolerance for any hatred of anyone, he is a man who has spent his political life cosying up to anti-Semites and terrorist groups that express genocidal intent against the Jewish people. He has worked closely with Holocaust deniers, praised anti-Semitic extremists and described Hamas and Hezbollah as his friends.

During his leadership so far, it is clear that the lead he is given is being followed farther down the party hierarchy. In March, I described how the party appeared to be rotting from the head down, with the discovery that the Labour Club at Oxford University had become an entity rife with anti-Semitic insults. Yet anyone who thought that the party could fall no farther had not imagined its turns of the past week.

In 2009, Jeremy Corbyn (left) said: "It will be my pleasure and my honour to host an event in Parliament where our friends from Hezbollah will be speaking. I also invited friends from Hamas to come and speak as well." Pictured in the middle is Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Pictured at right is Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

At the start of the week, the MP for Bradford West, Naz Shah, was found to have posted on Facebook threads such ideas as the deportation of all the Jews from Israel over to America; the caption read, "problem solved." Elsewhere she wrote on a discussion thread, "The Jews are rallying." Ms. Shah happens to be a Muslim and represents a constituency which, until the last election, was represented by George Galloway. Other luminaries of the area include the former Liberal Democrat MP and David Ward.

So it is fair to say that among her peers, what Ms. Shah said was not unusual. The posts are from 2014, a year before she became an MP, and during the latest of Israel's engagements in Gaza. In her apology, once she was found out, Ms. Shah talked of the fact that it was period in which "feelings were running high." Of course, not everyone during a period of heightened feelings calls for the destruction of a UN member state, but Ms. Shah did, and within a day of the exposé of these messages, and an appropriate political outcry, she was suspended from the Labour party, pending a full investigation.

Labour's week had barely begun. Within hours, another Labour MP, Rupa Huq, tried to come to Ms. Shah's rescue. In a BBC interview, Ms. Huq tried to compare calls to eradicate the State of Israel with any other "amusing" thing one might find on Twitter. After a swift U-turn, Ms. Huq managed to restrain herself and remained in the party.

Next, from stage far-left, the former Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, currently on Labour's National Executive Committee, made his intervention. Mr. Livingstone has been in the Labour party for almost five decades and in the same trenches as the party's current leader all of his political life. They have marched together for many a terrible cause and stood shoulder-to-shoulder on many a forsaken platform. But as Ken Livingstone went on several BBC programs, he probably did not expect that within hours, his own Labour party membership would be suspended, as was Ms. Shah's. Livingstone had used his media opportunities to start talking about Hitler -- specifically to claim, that Zionism was an early policy of Hitler's. Perhaps sensing that he had got himself onto unfortunate ground, Livingstone then stressed that this was all before Hitler "went mad" and killed six million Jews.

So within a week, the Labour party leadership was forced to suspend one of its newest MPs and one of its oldest grandees -- and both for the same reason. Presently, Jeremy Corbyn and his spinners are desperately trying to pretend that they have cut out the problem and are dealing with it appropriately. But there are reasons why they cannot do this with the problem that the Labour party -- and the wider left in Europe and America -- now has when it comes to Jews and the State of Israel.

Both Jeremy Corbyn and Ken Livingstone say that they condemn anti-Semitism. They always tend to add that they also condemn "Islamophobia and all other forms of racism," a disclaimer that always seems a deliberate attempt to hide a hatred of Jews under the skirts of any and all criticism of Islam. But doubtless on one level they believe it. What is most fascinating is that all the while they are saying this, they stoke the very thing they claim to condemn.

There was much outcry to one answer Ken Livingstone gave this week when he tried to excuse Naz Shah's original comments by saying that they were "over the top and rude." But it was what he said earlier and has so far gone uncommented upon that was far more revealing and points to the left's central problem here. In an earlier interview that morning with BBC London, Livingstone had said:

"The simple fact in all of this is that Naz made these comments at a time when there was another brutal Israeli attack on the Palestinians.

"And there's one stark fact that virtually no one in the British media ever reports, in almost all these conflicts the death toll is usually between 60 and 100 Palestinians killed for every Israeli. Now, any other country doing that would be accused of war crimes but it's like we have a double standard about the policies of the Israeli government."

That right there is what is at the centre of Labour's anti-Semitism problem. It pretends that the Jewish state does such things for no reason. There is no mention of the thousands of rockets that Hamas and other Islamist groups rain down on Israel from the Gaza Strip. The comment turns a highly-targeted set of retaliatory strikes by Israel against Hamas in the Gaza Strip into a "brutal" attack "on the Palestinians" as a whole. While mentioning those death-tolls, Livingstone has no interest in explaining that the State of Israel builds bunkers for its citizens to shelter in, while Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields and useful dead bodies for the television cameras, to help Hamas appear as an aggrieved "victim."

In pretending that a state, Israel, in protecting itself from a rain of rockets, stabbings and car-rammings in the best way it possibly can, is, instead, committing war-crimes, not only is there a perpetuation of one lie; there is the subtle placing of a kernel of a thought. Why, a naïf might wonder, do these double-standards exist only in regard to Israel, and not to, say, Iran, China, Sudan, North Korea or Russia? Might it be because some people just hate Jews?

Such a comment is also the reason why even if the party pretends to "root it out," it no longer can. What Livingstone said there passed without comment because it is the sort of thing which many MPs in the party and countless members of the party believe. Yet every time they say it, they are propagating a lie. Excusing Naz Shah's comments by saying that they came "at a time when there was another brutal Israeli attack on the Palestinians" parcels a whole pack of lies into one.

That is the problem. It is the narrative of the "left" on Israel that is causing the resurgence of anti-Semitism. It is not coming from nowhere. It is coming from them. If the left wants to deal with it, they first have to deal with themselves.

Douglas Murray is a current events analyst and commentator based in London.

Comment on this item

25 Reader Comments

Keith Rushing • May 5, 2016 at 10:12

Douglas' article is so on point! It never ceases to amaze me that liberals or liberal thought is to call for sacrifice of others to the protection of themselves! That the pope is speaking such nonsense hurts the cause of the Gospel. I fellowship with many Catholic Christians and his statements about refugees and climate change are very confusing! Douglas - Thanks for your insight!

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Jean Terry • May 5, 2016 at 00:35

It never ceases to amaze me that supposedly intelligent people defend terrorists basically and criticize Israel. I guess it is okay if rockets are rained on Israel and people are stabbed in the street as long as Israel does not retaliate. Europe and England are going down, down, down and I pray America does not follow suit. Under Obama we have gone down, down, down and I hope we get a new president that reverses this horrible trend. These leftists seem to live in a dream world that has never existed well and never will exist well. The terrorists would be just as glad to cut off their heads as anyone else.

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Myron Robinson • May 3, 2016 at 09:20

Corbyn and Galloway are notoriously anti-Semitic. I have ad nauseam posted on this and other websites that any Jew who votes for Labour may as well had he lived in Nazi Germany, voted for Hitler. Scum like Corbyn and Galloway should be exposed for what they are. The election of Corbyn as Labour leader is an indictment on all members of the Labour party.

For Jews to exist we need Israel. That is not to say that it, like any other country must accept criticism when wrong. But the Vitriol directed against Israel is 90% anti-Semitic. In excess of 90% of all UN Security Council Resolutions are directed against Israel. The depth and antagonism against Jews is growing rapidly. British Jewry beware. Chamberlain co-operated with Hitler as did most of the rest of the World until Hitler invaded Poland and then attacked Russia. The same will happen with ISIS. The EU has potentially admitted a 5th Column in excess of 3 million refugees the vast majority of which are males between the ages of 18-25. The weak and elderly cannot endure the harsh journey and unless financially able unfortunately have to remain in Syria.

Likewise Corbyn has never condemned the Muslim role of Honour in Iran/Iraq war 1980's 1 million killed, Darfur Sudan 600 000 massacred, Bangladesh 1 million Syria 300 000, Arab Spring who knows the exact figure. Yet Corbyn and his cronies are silent on this and 7000 rockets fired at Israel yet condemn the demolishment of 12 houses on the West Bank. Whilst this condemnation may well be justified their condemnation of the above Genocide by Muslim on Muslim and Arab on Arab is deafening by its silence.

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Robert Davis Myron Robinson • May 4, 2016 at 11:22

I agree with Myron except that the vitriol against Israel is not 90% antisemitic it's 100%! How could one explain the silence when others kill 1 million Arabs in Syria, Sudan, Iraq etc. for no other reason than taking or keeping power and blames Israel night and day since years every time Israel kills a few terrorists and inevitably very few of their population to defend itself? It's 100% antisemitic and an evident will to delegitimize Israel in view of taking away its territory so that it becomes non viable and easy to destroy. That's UN and Israel's enemies must be told so in order they know we do not accept any reply back. Their pressures are USELESS and won't meet any concession ever.

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lyn uzelac • May 3, 2016 at 05:10

I think it is time to uphold Nobel prize winner Nelson Mandela's claim that the indigenous people are entitled to their own land. So let's have the British values and culture dominating in the U.K., the Jews left alone to rule Israel and the Moslems in the bulk of the Middle East - including Saudi Arabia. The Somalis can develop their own country with their own people and maybe a little aid from the West, but actually as they and the Syrians chose to wreck their countries there is no moral call for international aid - except from the Lefties and the politically correct.

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John Miller • May 2, 2016 at 10:00

Mr Jeremy Corbyn has chosen to closely associate himself with Hezbollah, Hamas and their terrorist causes, the most obnoxious of which is the destruction of the State of Israel and elimination of its Jewish population. Can anyone explain to me why this is not an unarguably anti-Semitic position? In my simple judgement of right and wrong, good and evil it is blatantly racist.

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Mels • May 2, 2016 at 08:40

Douglas Murray's excellent piece on Anti-Semitism in the British Labour Party is backed up by a BBC report pointing out that it's since the advent of mass Muslim Immigration that Anti-Semitism in the UK and Europe has increased by four hundred percent.

Instead of confronting this poison,some Labour Party members,as well as other lefties,jump on the bandwagon doing all they can to increase it, like Naz Shah, clearly well groomed by George Galloway, the insidious Muslim boot licker. And Ken Livingstone, the well known liar by omissionhas often stated that in almost all Israel's incursions into Gaza, the death toll is 60 to 100 Palestinians for every Israeli. But he doesn't tell you there's a law in Israel making it compulsory to build Air Raid Shelters, while in Gaza there are no Shelters, and the jihadists fire from family homes, schools and hospitals where civilians are used as human shields.

Even Gerald Kaufman, who once accused Qassin Afzal of running an anti-Semitic election, has himself called Israel a Pariah state and it's politicians war criminals. As for Jeremy Corbyn, another Muslim boot licker and friend of terrorists, who is also leader (leader?LOL) of the Labour Party, and is ever demanding an increase in Muslim immigration in order to shore up his election base and guarantee his position. Sorry, mate, not with my vote.

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Sir Algernon • May 2, 2016 at 06:42

On the very day that the whole Livingstone/Corbyn business finally blew up (so to speak) last week, I was walking home when a gentleman of a certain persuasion shouted out of his car window "F*ck the Jews". I was the only person within view or earshot so I can only assume that he was a) shouting at me in the belief that I am Jewish b) irritated by the radio or c) irritated by seeing a white person walking along the road and wished to make his views known. I realise that a philosopher might point out that none of these are necessarily strictly logical conclusions, but then again neither are they strictly illogical.

Increasing anti-semitism in Britain is a direct consequence of Muslim immigration and has been facilitated by the Left's vitriolic hatred of what gave rise to it in the first place - the European Enlightenment and the liberalism that has developed in the centuries since. Of course, that liberalism has morphed into a screaming homunculus that despises it's own traditions and heritage and would prefer enslavement and destruction to defending itself. This is, to me, completely inexplicable and I've given up trying to understand it. I now simply accept it as a fact.

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Michael Woodman • May 2, 2016 at 06:40

The left have made a Faustian pact with Islam: the Red/Green alliance. Like all Faustian pacts there is a price to pay in the coin of moral corruption and eventual damnation. Anti-semitism is not the only evil the Left have chosen to turn a blind eye to. Hopefully, they are now being found out. A question for Obama: are they on the right side of history?

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Perry Mason • May 2, 2016 at 05:04

The full extent of British antisemitism is generally underestimated. Antisemitic speech and actions must be eliminated, but we should not react to comments which are basically true. For instance, Was Hitler a Zionist? Hitler did in fact help German Jews migrate to Palestine. I read it in the book 'The Nuclear Option', by David Goldenstein, where he details the extent to which the British government was responsible for the Holocaust as well as Israel's current predicament. No British government, Conservative or Labour, has ever supported Israel in the UN. Those who refuse to study history are bound to repeat it. Read the book, it is available from Amazon and on Kindle.

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dm • May 2, 2016 at 01:58

Corbyn and Livingstone are political and moral disasters. To align themselves with terrorist groups is to condone murder and rape which means they are nothing more than sociopaths.

UK is very cosmopolitan and has been for long. But because we accept nationalities from all over the world that does not mean that the British people should lose their identity or their rights to run their own country.

You will not find any Muslim non believers in politics any of the Arab countries, and if you are resident and another religion you are either dead or marked for death. Therefore why are these idiots Corbyn and Livingstone pretending to protect people who instigate violence.

Corbyn is openly anti-Semitic and pro terrorist, why is the government not taking action against him for promotion of treason against his own people.

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alex • May 2, 2016 at 00:23

Well said Mr. Murray. I just wish that someone on the BBC would make similar points but it appears that the BBC condones actions by Livingstone et al.

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Harvey • May 1, 2016 at 16:42

These anti-Semites don't seem to realize that they are being lied to by the radical Muslim hierarchy, they only want their support to they get in power then Livingstone, Corbyn and all these other infidels better convert to Islam other wise they will all be beheaded first.

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Astro • May 1, 2016 at 15:20

The Labour Party would fit right in on many US college campuses. The so-called Progressive left in general has a major Jewish problem.

About the Livingston affair, putting aside the historical illiteracy and use of debunked conspiracy sources like Brenner, what does it say about the guy's psychology when the first thing that comes to mind in addressing anti-Semitism is "Hitler said so and so"? Amazing, but we have seen this in the UK for years. Slowly but surely anti-Semitism was allowed to enter the mainstream. Just watch the average BBC news progam. I do not think it is any coincidence that there are less than 300,000 Jews in the entire UK.

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Alastor Astro • May 1, 2016 at 19:05

From the formation of the Labour Party, and its first time in government, its genetics have been anti-semitic - occasional seemingly-pro-Jewish isolated acts notwithstanding ... at the time of the Partition of the Palestinian Mandate, the Labour Government tried to betray the agreement as to how to partition the Palestinian Mandate ... anti-semitism is a Labour/leftist characteristic, like webbed feet or a bill on a duck - talking about the platypus doesn't make the bill any less a duck's characteristic ...

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g.ben-nathan. • May 1, 2016 at 13:41

Excellent analysis. The problem is though that this Jew-hating mindset will inseminate itself into Britain's left wing. London will elect a Labour Mayor and it will look as if left-wing thinking on Israel has been widely condoned.

Fortunately, Israel can cope with it. It has dealt with worse before.

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Kevin Russell • May 1, 2016 at 12:41

Today Dianne Abbott claims accusations of anti-Semitism within Labour is an conspiracy to smear the Party. #MossadDoneIt #PeskyZionists. See how the rot has spread.

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Dee • May 1, 2016 at 11:31

Of course there will be no real attempt to root out this anti-Semitism - Labour depends on its rapidly increasing Muslim as well as extreme left voter base. It is serving them well, why would they change? At least the ugliness of many Labour supporters has been highlighted, but the light shone will be soon extinguished.

Interestingly, Douglas's article yesterday is linked to this - very few people ( except for Peter Hitchens in today's Mail on Sunday) are brave enough to ask that Labour challenge their Muslim supporters on just one of the extreme views they espouse, anti-semitism.

Our Government, who one must credit with some small intelligence, cannot fail to be aware of the rising extremism, but they, as well as the mainstream media, are too cowardly to do anything about it. Because of this, intolerance of all and every sort goes unchallenged, and so it flourishes. What is happening in Bangladesh should, but won't be a warning.

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Robert Davis • May 1, 2016 at 11:03

Arabs hate Israel because it blocks their imperialist views over M.E. and psychologically, the rest of the world they long to conquer. As for their leftwing ally, it loves money with great avidity and they are jealous at the idea "all Jews are rich" which is another of their lies! Perhaps also Jews' fallacious wealth demonstrates that money can be obtained by work not by violence and stupid démonstrations. Jews' economic position is a proof leftwing dogmas and avidity for money are just trash, their words just lies and the conclusion they are doomed to be losers for ever which makes them mad. Of course if Jews had power, lefters would not dare take on them and this makes anti-Zionists as well hoping Israel will never become powerful! All lefters are able to do is lie and this makes them LOSERS at the end. Next year lefters will be OUT everywhere in particular in France the spearhead of anti-Zionism. They have wrecked Europe and Obama and Hillary are trying to do likewise in America.

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Solomon Balas • May 1, 2016 at 10:55

No amount of exposing these mental freaks will change them. The left is allied to fundamental Islam for dark reasons, on the basis that the end justifies the means. After collapse of the Soviet Union, the dreamers had to reinvent their objectives; They chose one brown world devoid of National Cultures ruled by the corrupt UN. The focus and rallying cry is the hatred for and delegitimisation of Jews and Israel. They are instead breeding fascism. I rest my case.

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Doc • May 1, 2016 at 10:03

The resolution of the Palestinian issue, as required by the western liberal progressive world, is essentially an adoption of a genocide plan for Jews.The left refuses to even ask for ANY concessions from the Palestinian side, sufficient to give israel even a minimum form of reassurance.This therefore defines Zionism as self defense. and anti-Zionism as Antisemitism, since it results in a genocidal outcome.The extreme left wants to see the end of Israel, which it considers an abomination.The extreme leftists such as Livingstone, Galloway (and I would include Corbyn, therefore by default), in pursuing this policy, are ultimately unable to separate Zionist from Jew or Israel from Jew, without dehumanizing the Jews, whose lives are intimately tied up with the outcome of their policy.Someone needs to make these leftists understand ...Jews are NOT obligated to commit suicide.The fact that the leftists will not understand or accept this, is itself a recognition that leftists are prepared to see Jews die, as long as Palestinians win.
That makes them the ultimate antisemites, as they endorse genocide through their policy.

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Michael Waugh • May 1, 2016 at 09:44

It is so funny. Corbyn and his limited band of supporters are in a special panic at the present time due to the council elections on Thursday and the voting for mayor of London on the same day. Khan, the Labour mayor candidate for London has dubious extremist connections over ten years he now wants to hide. If Khan gets in it is expected he will wreck London. He helped to get Corbyn in as Parliamentary leader of Labour in London. Now they want to get rid of him as he is unable to to hide his anti-semitic leanings and he is a loser. Only Zac Goldsmith as mayor, Conservative, will be good for London.

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Kenny Komodo • May 1, 2016 at 09:24

Oh how the mighty have fallen; from Sir Nicholas Winton to Livingston and Shah and others. It's as if they don't believe that Israel, a sovereign state, has the absolute right to defend itself. They should be applauding for the restraint the Israeli's have shown against the murderers of their people.

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Jane • May 1, 2016 at 08:21

How will the Great Leader extricate himself from this dramarama? Mr Herzog and Mr Regev have written to el Corbyno, hoping, no doubt, to instill some basic common sense and to establish a dialogue; will it work? I doubt it: ideology and years of righteous obfuscation will no doubt prevail and the poison at Labour's heart will cause the political equivalent of nuclear fission: John Mann and moderates on one side; Messrs Milne, Livingstone, Jones and assorted Israel-bashers on the other.

What an awful indictment of the Left's lunacy this is: next week's election results will surely reflect the public's loss of respect and trust in a once decent movement.

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Ian Harris • May 1, 2016 at 07:50

What is never mentioned is that the rise of anti-semitism is almost certainly linked to the increasing number of Muslims going to university, and into local government or politics. In areas with large Muslim populations, the people they elect must share their views,or be un-elected. There are now three million Muslims in UK, as against a tenth of that number of Jews. Politicians being the pliable and self-serving creatures many of them are will go with the flow -- something very worrying for Jews in UK. How the Left manages to reconcile its support for a religion that suppresses women, castigates and murders homosexuals, that follows an 8th century text that says non-Muslims should be killed, whose approved punishments include amputations, stoning and beheadings amazes me. Don't they see the dichotomy?

Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, a prisoner in Saudi Arabia who was sentenced to death as a minor, faces "death by crucifixion" after a final appeal has been dismissed. He was arrested in 2012 when he was just 17, during a crackdown on anti-government protests in the Shiite province of Qatif. According to the International Business Times, Al-Nimr was accused by the authorities of participation in illegal protests and of firearms offences, despite there being no evidence to justify the latter charge.

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